NATION IN BRIEF

September 2, 2004

Kin of Decapitated Man Seek

To Free Georgia Driver

MARIETTA, Ga. -- The family of a man decapitated in a freak traffic accident is asking authorities to free the driver, who police say continued home and left his close friend's headless body in the vehicle.

Francis "Frankie" Brohm, 23, was killed last weekend on the way home from a bar with his high school friend John Hutcherson.

Police say Brohm was drunk and hanging out the passenger-side window when Hutcherson veered off the road. Brohm hit the guide wire running from a telephone pole, severing his head. Hutcherson, apparently unaware of what had happened, drove home and went to bed early Sunday, leaving the body in the car.

The body was discovered the next day; Brohm's head was found on the side of the road.

Hutcherson, 21, was charged with vehicular homicide, driving under the influence and failing to stop at the scene of a fatal accident, and was being held on $100,000 bond.

"They don't want to see him in jail," said Brohm family attorney David Lipscomb. "Their position is he needs to be out to receive whatever treatment is necessary, put his life back together."

Man Charged in Explosion

At Stem Cell Laboratory

BOSTON -- Police arrested a man in connection with last week's pipe bomb explosion at a Boston area laboratory specializing in stem cell research. The man had been charged last year with trying to blow up the same building.

The pipe bomb exploded last Thursday morning at the Amaranth Bio laboratory in Watertown, Mass., shattering windows, police said. No one was injured.

Watertown police said they arrested Brad Karger, 29, and he will be arraigned on charges of having placed an explosive device and burning a building.

* COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A man charged in a deadly string of highway shootings in Ohio pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity even though a judge ruled on Tuesday that he was competent to stand trial. Charles A. McCoy Jr., 29, suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, according to court documents and his attorneys. They said psychiatrists found evidence McCoy did not understand right from wrong when the shootings took place.

* JACKSON, Miss. -- Twelve people who received portions of a $400 million settlement with the manufacturer of the diet drug fen-phen in 1999 have been arrested and charged with fraud for allegedly lying about taking the drug. Drugmaker American Home Products, which has since changed its name to Wyeth, quickly settled the case, offering to cap damages at $400 million for the five plaintiffs and claimants in about 800 other cases.

* BEAUMONT, Tex. -- Katrina Fergerson, who gave birth while on the toilet and let the baby drown in the bowl, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison.